Thought of the Day: “The more you look at a monster, the less monstrous it becomes.” — Stephen King

October 21, 2025

Monsters are everywhere.

They don’t all have claws or teeth or glowing eyes. Some live quietly in the back of your head, whispering worst-case scenarios about things that haven’t even happened yet. Some show up as regret. Others as shame. But no matter what form they take, Stephen King’s right, the more you look at a monster, the less monstrous it becomes.

Fear thrives in the shadows. It’s what our brains are built to do, to keep us alive by imagining what could go wrong. But the problem is, that same protective instinct often keeps us from living fully. We hide from the hard conversations, the new opportunities, the personal truths we’d rather not face. We feed our monsters by avoiding them.

The first time you look at something that scares you, really look, it’s uncomfortable. It feels like you’re staring into the dark, waiting for something to lunge. But that’s the trick. Most monsters don’t lunge. They dissolve. The more you stare, the more you understand them. They lose their shape, their mystery, their size.

When you finally sit down and open the overdue bill, it’s not as crushing as you imagined. When you make the phone call you’ve been putting off, it’s awkward but freeing. When you admit something to yourself that you’ve known all along, it doesn’t destroy you, it humbles you.

Looking doesn’t always make things easy. It just makes them real. And that’s the point. Real things can be dealt with. Imagined monsters can’t.

Stephen King has built a universe on fear, but he’s also spent a lifetime teaching us how to face it. His characters survive not because they’re fearless, but because they stop pretending the monsters aren’t real. They look. They name what’s haunting them. They keep going anyway.

I’ve learned that bravery isn’t about slaying dragons or standing tall in the storm. It’s about looking at the monster long enough to realize it’s just a shadow. It’s your shadow. And it can’t hurt you unless you keep running from it.

So maybe today’s Thought of the Day isn’t just a quote, it’s an invitation. Take a second look at what you’ve been avoiding. A fear. A mistake. A version of yourself you’ve been hiding from. It might not be as ugly as you think. And if it is, well, at least now you know what you’re dealing with.

Because monsters, once seen, rarely stay monsters for long.

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